FLIGHT International, 14 January 1965 77
First hovering flight, with flaps not deflected, was made at Dallas on December 29 by the Vought-
Hiller-Ryan XC-I42A. Following the first flight with 10° wing tilt, several other fights were made
with other deflection angles before the present VTOL programme started
programme in China, said Dr Cheng, was
physicist Dr Chien San-chiang, a Sorbonne
graduate and a one-time associate of Mme
Curie.
Death of Lady Tedder
LADY TEDDER, the wife of Marshal of the
RAF Lord Tedder, died suddenly on Jan-
uary 3 after a cerebral haemorrhage. Lady
Tedder was particularly honoured through-
out the RAF as the founder of the Malcolm
Clubs, in Algiers in 1943, where she married
the then Sir Arthur Tedder, Air C-in-C,
Mediterranean. In 1959 she and her hus-
band successfully fought and reversed an
Air Ministry decision to close the Malcolm
Clubs.
Bidding for NADGE
IN PARIS LAST WEEK the final seal was set on
a new international electronics consortium
which will compete for contracts, worth
£110m, for a new NATO Air Defence
System.
' Known as NADGE (NATO Air Defence
Ground Environment) the system will
provide the most up-to-date forms of radar,
communications and data-handling facilities
capable of giving the earliest possible
warning and the fastest possible reaction to
attack by supersonic aircraft. It will also
speed the feed-back of information and will
provide a comprehensive integration of the
NATO early-warning chain, the Hawk/Nike
surface-to-air missile network and F-104G
Starfighter squadrons in NATO.
The members of this consortium are
Hughes Aircraft; Compagnie Francaise
Thomson-Houston; Marconi; Selenia; Hol-
landse Signaal-Apparaten; and Telefunken.
Contracts for NADGE are expected to be
awarded this year. Competition will come
from a five-member Anglo-Franco-US
consortium formed last year, comprising
AEI, Elliott, Litton, CSF and ITT.
Heap Big Iroquois Contracts
THE us ARMY has ordered a further 720 Bell
Iroquois helicopters under a $98,517,345
contract placed with the Bell Helicopter
Company late last month. The contract is
for 149 nine-seat UH-lBs, the US Army's
standard utility helicopter, as used in South
Vietnam, and for 571 of the stretched
fuselage 14-seat UH-1D version. Both are
powered by the Lycoming T53-L-11 1,100
s.h.p. gas-turbine engine. Deliveries are to
begin late this year and be completed 12
months later.
The UH-1 series has gained adoption by
all US armed Services, the UH-1E being
used by the USN and USMC and the UH-1 F
by the USAF. A USAF contract for a
further 55 UH-lFs to bring total acquisition
to 106 machines was placed shortly before
the new US Army order. Powered by a GE
T58-3 shaft turbine delivering 1,325 s.h.p.,
the 11-seat UH-1F supports USAF missile
sites throughout the continental USA. To
be built (as are the US Army machines) at
Fort Worth, the second batch of USAF
Iroquois is to be delivered between Decem-
ber 1965 and November 1966.
Two More GW Destroyers Ordered
THE ROYAL NAVY placed orders for the
seventh and eighth County-class guided-
missile destroyers last week with Fairfield
Shipbuilding, on the Clyde, and Swan
Hunter on Tyneside. Total value of the
two orders is about £15m.
Four County-class vessels are already in
service and two more, Glamorgan and Fife,
have been launched and are now being
completed. The two new ships will be
equipped with both Seaslug Mk 2 and
Seacat ship-to-air weapons, and will each
carry a Wessex ASW helicopter. They will
have steam and gas-turbine propulsion.
Chinese Nuclear Rockets in 1967?
A LEAPING TJS SPECIALIST in Communist
Chinese affairs, Dr Chu-yan Cheng, fore-
cast in US News and World Report recently
that China would become a rocket-armed
nuclear power in 1967. Dr Cheng said that
China's rocket programme was led by Dr
Chien Hsueh-sen, who until 1955 worked in
the United States. Dr Chien graduated with
an MSc degree from Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and later took a doctorate in
aeronautical engineering at the California
Institute of Technology.
Leading the parallel nuclear weapons
Hughes Aircraft has received a $9,568,350
order for Hipeg rapid-firing 20mm gun pods
from the US Navy. The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
above is firing three Hipeg pods with a combined
output of more than 12,000 rounds per minute
Third prototype Hreguet Atlantic back at Toulouse after successful completion of armament trials.
Aeronavale trials are now beginning, factory space has been expanded and 40 are on order for
France and Germany. A second batch of 40, for France and the Netherlands, has been laid down